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Martin McGuinness

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Martin McGuinness MP MLA
3rd Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland
Incumbent
Assumed office
8 May 2007
First MinisterIan Paisley
Preceded byMark Durkan
Minister for Education
In office
November 1998 – May 8, 2007
First MinisterDavid Trimble
Preceded byNew Position
Succeeded byCaitríona Ruane
Member of Parliament
for Mid Ulster
Incumbent
Assumed office
1 May 1997
Preceded byWilliam McCrea
Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly
for Mid Ulster
Incumbent
Assumed office
25 June 1998
Preceded by(none)
Personal details
Born (1950-05-23) May 23, 1950 (age 74)
Derry, Northern Ireland
Political partySinn Féin
WebsiteMartin McGuinness MP MLA

James Martin Pacelli McGuinness MP MLA (Template:Lang-ga;[1] born in Derry on 23 May 1950) is the Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland.

A Sinn Féin politician and former Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) leader, McGuinness is the MP for the Mid Ulster constituency, the seat once held by Bernadette Devlin McAliskey. Like all Sinn Féin MP's, McGuinness practises absentionism at Westminster. He is also a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly for the same constituency. Following the St Andrews Agreement and the Assembly election in 2007, he became Deputy First Minister to Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader, and First Minister Ian Paisley, on 8 May. He served as Minister for Education in the Northern Ireland Executive between 1999 and 2002.

Provisional IRA activity

He joined the Provisional IRA around 1970 at the age of 20, after The Troubles broke out. In November 2003, he confirmed to the Bloody Sunday Inquiry that he had been second-in-command of the Provisional IRA in Derry in 1972, at the time of Bloody Sunday at the age of 21, but he refused to divulge any information about other Provisional IRA members.[2]

A claim was made at the Saville Inquiry that McGuinness was responsible for supplying detonators for nail bombs on Bloody Sunday where 14 civil rights marchers were killed by British soldiers in Derry. Paddy Ward claimed he was the leader of the Fianna, the youth wing of the IRA in January 1972. He claimed McGuinness, the second-in-command of the IRA in the city at the time, and another anonymous member gave him bomb parts on the morning of 30 January, the date planned for the civil rights march. He said his organisation intended to attack city-centre premises in Derry on the day when civilians were shot dead by British soldiers. In response McGuinness noted the claims were "fantasy", while Gerry O’Hara, a Sinn Féin councillor in Derry stated that he and not Ward was the Fianna leader at the time.[3]

Peter Lilley a British MP, speaking under cover of parliamentary privilege in a Westminster debate on 13 December, 2001 recalled that McGuinness while a commandant of the IRA in Derry claimed to have "had a dozen Catholic informers killed".[4]

McGuinness negotiated alongside Gerry Adams with the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Willie Whitelaw, in 1972. He was convicted by the Republic of Ireland's Special Criminal Court in 1973, after being caught with a car containing 250 lb (113 kg) of explosives and nearly 5,000 rounds of ammunition. He refused to recognize the court, and was sentenced to six months imprisonment. In the court he declared his membership of the Provisional Irish Republican Army without equivocation: 'We have fought against the killing of our people... I am a member of Óglaigh na hÉireann and very, very proud of it'.[5]

After his release, and another conviction in the Republic for IRA membership, he became increasingly prominent in Sinn Féin, the political wing of the IRA. He has been in contact with British intelligence since the 1980 hunger strike.[6] He was elected to a short-lived assembly at Stormont in 1982, and was then banned from entering Great Britain under the Prevention of Terrorism Act.[7]

In August 1993, he was the subject of a two part special by the The Cook Report, a Central TV investigative documentary series presented by Roger Cook. It accused him of continuing involvement in IRA activity, of attending an interrogation and of encouraging Frank Hegarty, an informer, to return to Derry from a safe house in England. Hegarty's mother Rose appeared on the programme to tell of telephone calls to McGuinness and of Hegarty's subsequent murder. McGuinness denied her account and denounced the programme saying "I have never been in the IRA. I don't have any sway over the IRA".[8]

In 2005, Michael McDowell, the Irish government Tánaiste, claimed McGuinness, along with Gerry Adams and Martin Ferris, were members of the seven-man IRA Army Council.[9] McGuinness denied the claims, saying he was no longer an IRA member.

Chief negotiator and Minister for Education

He became Sinn Féin's chief negotiator in the time leading to the Belfast Agreement. He became MP for Mid Ulster in 1997, and after the Agreement was concluded, was returned as a member of the Assembly, and nominated by his party for a ministerial position in the power-sharing executive, where he became Minister for Education. One of his controversial acts as Minister for Education was his decision to scrap the 11-plus exam, which he himself had failed as a schoolchild.[10] He was re-elected to the Westminster Parliament in 2001, but along with the rest of his party has refused to take his seat there (see abstentionism).

In May 2003, transcripts of telephone calls between McGuinness and British officials including Mo Mowlam, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, and Jonathan Powell, Tony Blair's Chief of Staff, were published in a biography of McGuinness entitled From Guns to Government. The tapes had been made by MI5 and the authors of the book were arrested under the Official Secrets Act. The conversations showed an easy and friendly relationship between McGuinness and the British. He joked with Powell about Unionist MPs while Mowlam referred to him as "babe" and discussed her difficulties with Blair. In another transcript he praised Bill Clinton to Gerry Adams.[11]

Personal Life

McGuinness married Bernadette Canning in 1974. They have four children, two girls and two boys. He is a fan of Derry City F.C.[12] and the Derry Gaelic football team.

References

  1. ^ Ag cur Gaeilge ar ais i mbéal an phobail - Fórógra Shinn Féin do na Toghcháin Westminster — Sinn Féin press release, released 22 April 2005.
  2. ^ McGuinness confirms IRA role BBC News website, 2 May 2001
  3. ^ McGuinness is named as bomb runner by John Innes, The Scotsman, 21 October 2003
  4. ^ Commons offices for Sinn Fein by Patrick Wintour, Guardian Unlimited, 14 December 2001
  5. ^ Taylor, Peter (1997). Provos The IRA & Sinn Féin. Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. pp. 152-153. ISBN 0-7475-3818-2. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
  6. ^ Setting the Record Straight Sinn Féin website
  7. ^ "Martin McGuinness MP Mid Ulster". Retrieved 2007-03-22.
  8. ^ Martin McGuinness: From Guns to Government Liam Clarke and Kathryn Johnston, ISBN 1-84018-725-5
  9. ^ Adams and McGuinness named as IRA leaders Daily Telegraph 21 February 2005
  10. ^ McGuinness: Let's work together BBC News website 4 December 1999
  11. ^ [1]
  12. ^ Campbell, Denis. "My team - Derry City: An interview with Martin McGuinness", The Guardian, 2001-04-08. Retrieved on 2007-05-08

See also

Parliament of the United Kingdom

Template:Incumbent succession box

Northern Ireland Assembly
Political offices

Template:Incumbent succession box

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